


Where Are All The Gods

by drelfina



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Nohara Rin, Canon Compliant, Coping with Grief, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Genderqueer Character, Grief/Mourning, Headcanon, Jinchuuriki Nohara Rin, Mostly Canon Compliant, Multi, Nohara Rin Lives, Other, Uchiha Shisui's gender is Glitter, cute shisui is cute, genderqueer!Shisui, mourning everything for years, nohara rin is gonna show up everywhere now believe it!, not dealing with grief, skin-splitter rin, some others show up, this is Rin backstory mostly, traumatising everyone else with jinchuuriki grief, tweakable to fit all alternate au and alternate timelines for later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-03-26 06:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19000516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drelfina/pseuds/drelfina
Summary: They took her and put a god of water and typhoons and hurricans in her.It should have ripped her apart, like all the others before.Instead, she ripped them apart.This is Nohara Rin's story, Missing-nin, jinchuuriki, bounty hunter and feral-medic.She is Skin-splitter Rin.COMPLETE





	1. Somewhere beyond my reach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rikacain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikacain/gifts).



> As all this new batch of fics start with, Rikacain and I were bitching about Kishimoto's terrible failure in dealing with women and girls in his series. All these interesting women, if they weren't love-interests, they just plain died or disappeared. 
> 
> One of the first girls we noticed who got written out of the story almost as soon as we found out about her existence was Nohara Rin. 
> 
> Who was she? Why is it that Kakashi is well known for mourning _Obito_ , not Rin? And later, we find out she died to further Obito and Kakashi's angst, and even _then_ they were obsessed with each other - Obito was Kakashi's weakness, and Rin... 
> 
> Rin was dead. 
> 
> We refused this canon. We took Pentapus' Skin-splitter Rin, and put her in this instead. 
> 
> In this world, the jinchuuriki are actual gods of chakra and nature; Uzumaki Mito never sealed away the Kyuubi, Kushina was a master of seals, the kyuubi attacking was a natural disaster of chakra and gods, and Obito stayed very dead. 
> 
> Thus when Kirigakure made a jinchuuriki out of a Konoha shinobi, as a way to fuck with yondaime hokage, and as an experiment, Rin ripped them apart. 
> 
> This is her story.

It started when she was sixteen. 

Being captured during a war wasn't unthought of, wasn't an impossibility, and it was a contingency that they all, of course had to plan for. 

Of their remaining team, it wasn't a surprise that they'd grabbed _her_. Politically, she was the Yondaime Hokage's student, and Yondaime was notoriously emotional about people he considers _his_ , and compared to his other surviving student, she was substantially weaker. 

Less famous. Less _everything_. 

So she woke up in the dark with a thrashing violence of chakra above her, unfamiliar nin standing over her in their pale sterile scrubs, their kumo hitai-ate glinting with the little light thrown by the glow in the room.

"Thirty-fourth attempt." 

And then it was pain. 

*** 

They'd wanted to cage a bijuu. They were gods made of natural chakra, and generally people avoided them if they could and they _wanted to cage a bijuu_. 

She'd understand it, in a technical, hypothetical way. 

If you could harness the power of gods, why wouldn't you? 

Kirigakure didn't want to risk their own fighters while the method was still experimental, so prisoners. 

It should have killed her. It should have ripped her apart. 

But instead, her skin split and she screamed and she ripped _them_ apart. 

And then she went home. 

*** 

Those who knew what she was now couldn't meet her eyes. 

Rin had grown up in Konoha, the taste of autumn leaves in the air, with its strict seasons and heavy summer rains, where everything looked-smelled-tasted green and glowing. 

Now there was the taste of salt on her tongue if she breathed in, and if she turned towards the east, the _urge_ for the ocean pulled like a tidal wave. 

*** 

"I'm sorry I was late," Kakashi said to her once. 

Kakashi couldn't meet her eyes either - and she didn't want to try, just curling her hands to hide the claws. 

Minato-sensei didn't want to send her on missions; when she got angry it was a huge rush, vicious and tidal, cold and overwhelming, and she drowned in it, even as she grew monstrous and and ripped up the ground and flooded the fields. 

And she was angry a lot. 

The Sanbi was a god of water, of the typhoons and the hurricanes off the coast, devastating. Humans were nothing to it. 

But now it was awake and confined to a small mortal vessel and it _hated_ it. 

*** 

It felt wrong, that suiton jutsu came too easily now, just releasing it was a torrential rush of water, icy and dark, every yin to the fire that she had been used to. That the sanbi had overridden her affinity and she had to relearn it all over again, her fire jutsu coming out weak and riddled with steam. 

"You probably could combine it," Kushina-sensei told her as she struggled with not turning Training Ground 8 into mud. Or a new river. "Seems like it'd be a sort of steam or mist-like release.. Right?" 

Rin knelt in the mud, and felt it seethe under her fingers. 

"Maybe," she said. 

*** 

The only ones who still looked her in the eye was Yondaime-sama and Kushina-sensei. Minato had been her jounin-sensei but once she'd become chuunin, before _this_ , Kushina-sensei had noted her interest in seals and healing, and had taken her on to help direct her training as Team Minato slowly dispersed. 

Now she had to relearn control, and not blast flesh apart, not to punch something and have a tree explode from the force. 

"You'll be able to get it, I'm sure," Kushina-sensei said, red hair sparkling from the mist that hung in the air, from Rin's breath, turning everything into a kaleidoscope of glittery colours. Red upon red like the flames that Rin could no longer call up anymore. "You've got the discipline, Rin-kun." 

"I _can't_." 

"You _can_ ," Kushina-sensei said, blue eyes so dark they were almost black, and Rin could feel the water god stir within herself. Dark blue like the depths of the ocean, quiet and still. 

"You're a shinobi of Konoha, don't forget that." 

*** 

The seal was a bastardized version of cagement from Uzuoshio, the fact that it could cage and seal a literal god of chakra and nature into a person was _fascinating_ , and both Minato-sensei and Kushina-sensei studied it, modified it, worked on it. Rin knew as much about the seal as anyone else, the first year she was back, but it wasn't like the seal could keep the sanbi's chakra from leaking into hers, couldn't keep its anger from flowing down her arms, splitting her skin over and over and lengthening her hands into claws when she lost grip of her anger. 

Of all people to stay away from, she knew, was Kiri, because who had they kidnapped to torture for that seal? Who had they turned to get that knowledge at all? 

As useful - as much as she'd _wanted_ \- to turn that rage and hate onto her captors, turn the tides on them, the risk was too great even if the gains might have been just as great, and Yondaime-sama wouldn't risk Kiri ripping the sanbi out of Rin and turning it on Konoha. 

*** 

The first meal Rin got when she got home, she nearly spat it out. 

Fire Country was native to many spices - it was always a relief to come home to the burst of flavours across her tongue after a mission in another country, and she'd been looking forward to it, the first bite to say _I'm home, I'm safe, I made it_. 

But the first time a thinly sliced piece of peppery steak passed her tongue, she'd gagged and spat it and a pond's worth of seawater out, heaving as sanbi _screamed_ in her head, her chest, feeling her nails claw across the wood counter, her teammates, her _countrymen_ jerk away, and she knew, she was never safe again. 

*** 

Eventually she learned medical jutsu again. If her touch was ice-blue instead of the warm touch of green that most medic nin had, if she was better at cutting things open than she was at knitting them together, at least she had a speciality. 

Eventually she learned how to make water clones that hit like a tsunami, eventually she learned how to blanket an entire stadium with deadly mist, each drop burning with poison and scalded the eyes and scoured the lungs. 

Eventually she learned to pull a thick shell over herself, impervious to many attacks. 

She was a shinobi of Konoha, she was going to make this work. 

*** 

It ended when she was eighteen, when the kyuubi attacked. 

The only thing she could do was hold off the kyuubi, defend a section of wall while Yondaime-sama and Kushina-sensei worked feverishly to evacuate the Village, to get everyone safe and - 

"I can seal it within myself," Kushina-sensei said, heavily pregnant and her hair red and burning in the flame of the kyuubi. 

The kyuubi was a towering inferno of flame and chakra made real, so bright and crackling that the smoke of burning wood and meat spiraled smoke and blotted out the sun. 

"Kushina, _no_ ," Minato said, voice cracked from the smoke. 

"Idiot," she told him. "Women are made to hold more than one life." 

It wasn't an excuse, it was barely a reason, but maybe, maybe it would have worked. Rin would have volunteered to be it, this time, since she knew the pain of taking in a god and making space within herself. 

But the sanbi raged against the fire, and water hated fire as much as fire hated water, and it was only her weak human mind that was barely holding back a fight of gods on mortal lands. 

Maybe it would have worked, if Kushina hadn't gone into premature labour. 

And Rin had to hold off the kyuubi while Kushina gritted out the birth of their beloved, wanted, _desired_ child and heir of Uzushio and Konoha, both her and Minato's hands scrabbling in blood while he tried also to make the seal.

And. 

The child didn't cry when he was born, too weak. Too young. _too premature_. 

"Seal it into him," Kushina said. Because her child was dying, and her blood was all over the too-tiny body, and Rin was barely holding off - barely managing to pin the kyuubi to keep the rest of the village safe and Minato's face was streaked with blood and tears as they traced and burned the seal to the tiny, barely breathing body. 

A child so small couldn't hold a god so huge; even Rin couldn't help but feel the sanbi bursting from her skin each time the kyuubi thrashed, whipping and setting the mountains and forests on fire. 

They'd just managed it, they completed the seal. 

"Let go now, Rin!" 

And she dropped the hold on the kyuubi, barely holding onto the barrier of water keeping the rest of the Village away and safe - 

And the rush of fire seared her face, a hot-dry breath of air that would have scarred her if it weren't for sanbi - 

But Yondaime and Kushina had no such protection. 

In the last flail, the kyuubi lashed out and claw and tail killed them both even as the kyuubi spiralled into the child. 

The child that. 

Breathed and cried and screamed like any newborn. 

***

It ended when she was eighteen, the village in tatters and Sandaime taking up the title and hat again. 

Turned out that the sanbi hated the kyuubi, and the seal that Kushina had modified had put the kyuubi to sleep. 

She'd meant for the kyuubi to die with the boy, since he was born so tiny and premature. 

But the kyuubi kept the baby breathing even as it slept within him and the Sanbi knew it could kill the kyuubi _now_. 

But the seal tied the kyuubi to naruto's life and she _refused_ to kill her sensei's child. 

"Must you leave," Sandaime-sama had said, and she nodded, keeping her hands tight and clenched. 

She left in the middle of the night, with a scored through hitai-ate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Subtitle: The Amazing Food Tour of the Elemental Countries, as Told by Nohara Rin. 
> 
> Also, I specifically wanted more mention of Kushina - Minato always struck me as kind, but a distant kind of christ-person, and he had always been kindest, most precious to Kakashi... 
> 
> but who was Rin close to? 
> 
> Kushina's death and the thought of killing _Kushina's_ child thus affected Rin far more than the thought of her genin team's sensei. Yondaime was her Hokage, but Kushina was HER sensei. 
> 
> and now she's dead. And if she stayed, the sanbi would kill the slumbering kyuubi and with it _her_ sensei's child.


	2. Where Lightning Splits the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rin avoids Fire Country - maybe she can do that forever. 
> 
> Jinchuuriki, mad vessel of a god and feral medic. 
> 
> But in the end, she's still Konoha Shinobi.

Since the kyuubi, the sanbi refused to settle. 

"The hell," she yelled, struggling to pull the water back in - it was already bad enough, half the town was flooded, and god knew how many were injured - she couldn't stay as it was. 

_DEATH. DESTRUCTION_ , the sanbi snarled and snapped inside, trying to pull water down from the sky. 

There was no way to get it to listen so she did the only thing she could think of. 

She went to Wind's deserts and punched a cactus. 

"Do you like that, you bastard?" She screamed back at it. "Stop fucking flooding people!" 

The bite of the spines into her skin were tiny, numerous prickles and the rage roiling under her skin was not quite enough to burn away the fact that she couldn't go home again, that she was stuck out here away from home. But the air was dry as bone, there was nothing for sanbi to haul out of the wind to flood a desert. 

Cactus juice tasted like astringent green as she bit out the spines with her teeth, but at least the sanbi was quiet for a while. 

*** 

_THE SEA. OCEAN_

She dreamed of salt water flooding her mouth and lungs, and she woke up with a snarl. 

"Shut up, shut _up_ ," she hissed and shoved her hands into the sand, despite the flinch from the ghost of cactus prickles - they were long healed, no matter how many cacti she'd punched. She'd punched a few scraggly almost-trees too, thin prickly things which offered no shade and almost crumbled rather than exploded. 

_OCEAN_. 

"Do you feel that?" She growled at the sanbi, hands up to her elbows in the sand. Dry, dusty grit. "Sand's the dead corpses of coral. This is a _dead sea_. Are you happy now? We're in a _sea_." 

The sanbi snarled back at her, but when she caught a scorpion by having it jab its tail in her palms, she ate it with vicious revenge while the sanbi hissed a sulk. 

*** 

"No! You bloody bastard!" Rin hissed and looked around to grab a cactus with her bare hands and squeezed till the poor thing's juices leaked. "Get it in your head, I will _not_ let you just, flood everything!" 

_KILL THE INTRUDER_. 

She whipped around and there was a wavering in the air next to the prickly spiny tree two dozen feet away and she snarled, flinging the mangled cactus at it. "Get out of here unless you want to be next!" 

The juice exploded into a tiny, spiny snakey lizard, springing into the wavery air and slammed into where a face would be. 

***

"You feel that?" 

The squad stopped, and the squad leader swallowed. "Ran, go check it out." 

 

"But taicho!" 

"Be quick, don't risk anything." 

Ran didn't look happy about it, but he slipped away. Five minutes later he was running back. "The crazy lady's out there punching _cacti_." 

The squad leader winced. "Right, we detour right now." 

"The crazy lady?" the young newly promoted chuunin Hide asked. 

"Last week Junichi's squad ran into her," Ran muttered as their squad leader indicated an abrupt 90 degree turn to go AWAY from the spurt of water chakra. "She flung a suiton snake at his face, made of cactus juice and needles. It took _hours_ to get it out of his skin." 

Hide winced. 

*** 

It only took two weeks before Sanbi stopped screaming about the ocean. She could still feel the pull, but it was gentler, sulkier, and she thought she could venture into a small nomadic market and try some of their food. 

Chilli was native to Fire Country but its hotter and fiery breeds were cultivated here in Wind Country, to match the stronger meats and drier climate. 

_FIRE_ , Sanbi shrieked when she put a bit of barbecue'd lamb into her mouth. 

It took incredible effort not to spit out, and she forced herself to swallow. 

"It's not _fire_." 

_FIRE BAD. NO. WANT FISH._

It was the first time in - knowing the sanbi that it'd expressed a want that wasn't death and destruction. 

"Fine, we'll get fish," she said. 

Wind country wasn't exactly known for its fish, but stew made from dried dace and mackerel was available, even if heavily spiced, and sanbi… 

Actually was contented about the fish, even if not too keen on the spice. 

_Hot_ it complained. _not enough salt._

Well. it was a sea creature wasn't it? 

Hmm. 

*** 

"What's your name?" 

For a long moment, she thought it wasn't going to answer. The last … _words_ she'd felt from it was _JELLYFISH_ and then nothing after she'd eaten the whole pack. 

_Isobu_ , the sanbi said after a moment. 

The night sky was bright with a vomit of stars, and no trees to block it, the mountains so distant on the horizon they were tiny dark lumps. 

Unlike Fire Country - no, unlike _Konoha_ , where the Village's own light was a small star of its own, and the sky was framed by trees and hills, Wind country was almost unbearably flat, the sky open like a vast bowl, and if she lay down and looked up it felt like she could fall into it. 

_I am Isobu_ , sanbi said, and it sounded a little strange. _I. Weird word._

She laughed a little, dry and hoarse. "Hello Isobu," she said. "I'm Nohara Rin." 

*** 

After knowing Isobu's name, it became easier. 

Less angry. 

Isobu didn't like the general dishes of Wind Country, the chillies and heat making him sulk, but there was always someone making hotpot somewhere, and most of the time that was enough. 

The first time she found a place that sold ramen in Wind Country, she cried. 

She had no tears after the fight with the kyuubi, and it _wrenched_ , to shake and feel her eyes burn but nothing coming out. 

_Why hurt. Angry? KILL._

"No. No. It's not." She pressed her hand to her mouth and breathed against her palm. "Minato-sensei and Kushina-sensei, they're dead. And I can't go home." 

She didn't even know just who survived the kyuubi attack - because Isobu had been screaming so hard for her to drown Kushina's son she had had to leave. 

She'd grown up with Sandaime as the Hokage, but in her heart, the Hokage was Minato-sensei, and Kushina-sensei had been like the rock that should never have fallen. 

_Home. Home. Go home._

And Isobu was pushing - feelings of calm cool deep depths, of darkness beneath the waves, the soft pop of fresh jellyfish against her tongue and she laughed. 

It choked and strangled in her throat, but it was a laugh. 

*** 

The first year she was away, she didn't really have any particular aim, other than _avoid Fire Country_. She'd tried polishing her hitai-ate, for the first few months, but after a point she let it stay as it was, getting dusty and worn as she made her way out of Wind towards Grass. 

_Cool, dry_ Isobu said, unsure if it liked the climate here. 

But the grasslands looked like a huge green sea, rippling with the winds, and nothing like Fire Country it didn't even make her throat hurt. 

_Not sea,_ Isobu sulked, but it liked the bite of fermented mare's milk she got. 

***

She almost ate the frog that hopped into her lap one night. 

_Food!_ Isobu said. 

And after a year of wandering through Wind and Grass and everything in between, she was good at catching anything that moved. Isobu had his own poisons, so it wasn't like anything she ate could kill her. 

(And she was always hungry, always, Isobu was demanding, for a turtle) 

"No! Stop!" the frog yelped, and it took a moment before she realised it was wearing a little yukata. "Message!" 

She blinked and let it down. "Message from whom?" 

The yukata had a tiny little patch sewn on the back and she almost picked up the frog again to check. 

"From the Great Sage himself!" the frog's throat swelled a little, and then spat out a scroll. "There! Delivered! Message?" 

"I don't have any paper," Rin said dryly, but picked up the soggy scroll and opened it. 

A message alright. It was from, of all people, Jiraiya, Minato-sensei's sensei. 

He'd never written before. He had never - he hadn't even returned for Minato-sensei and Kushina's funerals, had he? 

Did she want to care what he had to say? 

***   
Jiraiya's long rambly bullshit note could have been summed up thusly: Hi Rin-chan, the Hokage wants to know how you've been doing and where you are? 

She breathed, and thought of the two weeks after the funeral which had taken place two weeks after the attack, when they had gathered the dead and Rin had refused to hear the names, didn't want to hear the names, and had watched from the top of the Hokage monument and failed to cry. 

A month. She'd been there for a month wrestling down Isobu from drowning Kushina's son in his own lungs, and Jiraiya hadn't shown up for his own star student. 

"Tell him," Rin said, rolling up the scroll and resisting the urge to set it on fire. "Exactly this, word for word: What the fuck do you get off on asking me what i'm doing when you didn't even attend Minato-sensei's funeral you failure of an asshole? Why didn't you come back for Naruto, you're his _godfather_! Go fuck yourself!"

The frog's mouth gaped. 

"Do you want me to repeat it?" Rin asked sweetly. 

*** 

It turned out that besides being a useless piece of shit old bastard, Jiraiya sort of was Konoha's spymaster. Though why it took him a year to catch up to her, she didn't know and didn't ask. The nearest town had a bookstore stocked with gaudy orange books, the Newest Icha Icha volume, set in Yuga, land of hot springs, which pretty much told her that Jiraiya's 'research' was probably what kept him there. 

So she veered down from Grass, heading down towards Ame. It was wet and full of lakes, and incredibly paranoid shinobi who were practically fish, but that not only cheered Isobu up, it meant getting further away from Yugakure. If she could put the whole of Fire Country between her and Jiraiya, it would be good. Better if she could put every damn country between them but Isobu was already sulking about having stayed so long in Wind. 

She skirted Amegakure itself, but headed to the larger cities, smiling at the pleasure Isobu had at the rain and lakes. 

It wasn't salty enough, but it was wet, and the smell of fried ginger and garlic intrigued Isobu enough to allow her to try to eat steamed carp. 

Isobu approved. 

*** 

The first time it happened, she was just outside Tanigakure, following a river that was probably not close enough to be a tributary of Naka River, but it was something she could almost make herself think it was. 

The river was really too small for the crocodiles that were native to the country, so even children and older civilians could amble past without too many concerns. 

She had just passed a cart when she heard the snap of wood and a bellowing buffalo. 

"Medic! Someone help, please, get a Medic!" 

She didn't even think, just reacted; the cart's axle had cracked, the buffalo had slipped and the man was trapped - 

It was the work of a moment to shove the buffalo out of the way, and without even thinking too hard, she had her hands on his legs. 

Pulling bone straight and fusing them back, hauling on chakra that she didn't think about needing… 

He was good as new and she had healed him without _thinking_. 

"Thank you medic-san!" the kid burst out, and the man gave her a whole bucket of freshwater eel as a thank you. 

She considered trying to sell the eel but Isobu got real interested in the eel. 

Which was when she realised that she had been eating a lot less than she actually _could_ for almost a year . 

_Full_ , Isobu said, sounding pleased and bubbly, and went to sleep. 

*** 

The next time it happened, there was a disease. 

_Plague,_ Isobu said, tipping her head towards a train of merchants heading into a civilian city just south of Takigakure. 

Or rather it was an image/thought of something that was almost algal blooms, the fermented sweet scent of rotting, dead lakes, and the weak thrashing of suffocating fish. 

Disease, plague. 

That - she had no idea how to start helping with - but Isobu did. 

All diseases were water-borne at one point, and Isobu could pull it out, concentrate it, ball it down and swallow. 

_Nasty algae_ , Isobu huffed but she ignored him to put her hands on the moist breath of the feverish patients and _pull_ it into herself. 

It made her feverish hot, but Isobu could keep her going, and she could keep pulling the disease from first the dying, then the ones who were ill, and finally the ones who were vectors and hosts. 

No surgery needed, and the only payment she asked was food. 

***

It kept happening - healing across the Elemental countries, getting paid, and feeding Isobu's ravenous appetite, while dodging frogs and toads. 

It was… simple. It was always the next city, the next patient, the next meal. 

*** 

She stood on the southern coast of Lightning, and felt Isobu breathe with her. 

The sea - it was huge and all encompassing. 

How long had it been since she'd allowed herself - and Isobu - to come near the coast since that fateful time in Kiri? 

Ages. Forever. Years. 

_Jellyfish!_

She laughed, tasting salt on her tongue at the spray of the large waves. Lightning crackled in the distance; spend any time in Lightning Country and you got used to it. 

Lightning country was all mountains and lightning - but in between that were fertile valleys and the food was ridiculously good, even if Isobu was ambivalent. 

So many kinds of sausages, and while she wasn't sure about the things they did to the shredded cabbage (pickled? So weird, cabbage should be _fresh_ ) the shredded potatoes went marvellously with the spiced sausages. 

And if she ventured close enough to Kumogakure, the smoked duck and goose dishes were almost heavenly. 

One of the vendors had told her you didn't live until you had the smoked duck udon. She didn't love udon but the smoked duck had almost made her a convert. 

Now she was on the coast, though, and far in the distance, beyond the storm, was Kirigakure. 

Isobu stirred, shifting with each leap of wave.

_Ocean!_

"Yes, ocean," she said. Spread her hands and felt the water surge under her. 

Maybe if she wanted - it felt like she could walk out onto the water surface and keep going. Beyond the water, beyond the islands of Kirigakure - what was beyond that? No one knew. 

_Fish_ , Isobu murmured. _Cod snapper tuna so many_. 

And the silvery glitter of many kinds of fish she didn't have the name for but the taste-thought of, the feel-thought of, huge schools of them, so far out that only the largest ships that Water and Lightning could afford could just _touch_. 

_Whale_ , Isobu whispered, and a huge shape - dark and deep, so large swam past her mind - it was so large that only Isobu could even rival it, and it was so far out and lived in the depths so dark and cold that she would be frozen if it wasn't so deep. Huge shape but hardly slow, if it swam by her she'd roll with the currents. 

Would even the strongest jutsu she could call up even tickle such a thing? 

_Play. Fun_ , Isobu said and she took a step forward, and another, adjusting automatically to the roll of waves. 

And the wind picked up, whipping her hair around her face, stinging against her cheeks and lightning cracked down into the sea.. 

_Look! Fish!_

She looked - her human eyes saw nothing but the roiling dark of the sea, almost black with how dark it was, but underneath it - she could feel the coiling surge of a huge shoal. Far out in the water, and - in the fishing ship, the way it wallowed into the water, heavy with a catch of still mostly alive cod… 

Lightning flashed, and then there was a _crack_ and fire. 

_Fish!_ Isobu said, satisfied - because Isobu could _taste_ the fish and it _wanted_ \- 

The ship was sinking. 

"No," Rin said, started to _pull_ the water towards them, even as the people onboard tried to put out the fire. "No, no eating their catch, save them!" 

_But fish!_

When she yelled into the storm, it felt like the storm howled back, a rush of rain and seawater lashing against her even as she formed the seals to push out the largest suiton she'd allowed since the kyuubi and grabbed the _storm_ and _yanked_. 

It was like dragging not just the water but the wind with her too - and it screamed, lightning snapping and cracking around her but she wasn't afraid as long as the ship didn't sink. 

She didn't think about how to these people, the loss of a huge catch like this would mean the loss of income for months. 

That if they were injured, they could lose even more. 

Isobu sulked but she had been ignoring its tantrums for months - years almost - and she dragged the ship back till she was waist high in the sea and the ship was creaking under the force of the waves pushing it back to harbour, the hull straining. 

***

They noticed her of course, who wouldn't have? A suiton so huge, to stop a storm and save a ship - they wanted to know what she'd wanted. 

_Cod!_ Isobu exclaimed, and she agreed to that - a huge tub of still weakly thrashing cod longer than she was tall, and Isobu… 

Stuffed it into her mouth. 

That wasn't a good decision. 

*** 

_Sorry_ , Isobu said, while she coughed up scale and bone. 

The feeling was unfamiliar, alien. Isobu didn't know what it meant to feel _regret_ , because the sea always changed, and there was nothing that Isobu couldn't eat for as long as it could remember. 

But mortal _human_ mouths couldn't take it and. 

Rin had almost suffocated, choked on the scale and bone and - 

It wasn't the fact that she might have died that was terrifying - Isobu knew what it meant to die, and had known that it could too die if the other Gods had fought it, that was the way of nature. 

But Rin had punched cacti and sucked the stinging sap and needles from her hands. She had eaten fire, she had stuck her hands into the corpse of an ocean and screamed. She had walked across the water and turned her face into lightning and laughed. 

It was odd, to not want this life, this specific, single, little life, to not pass on. 

*** 

"Next time," Rin said, having to use tweezers to pull out a scale lodged at the back of her tongue. "I'm going to ask for money instead." 

***   
_"You don't have to forgive, no matter my reasons, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry._

_I miss him too._

_I miss them all._

_I'm sorry I wasn't there for them._ "

That was the note. 

The other item in the scroll had been a bingo book, the newest edition from Kaze. 

She wasn't in it, of course, because what could anyone say about a God who could grab a storm by the balls and squeeze? 

But Hatake Kakashi was in it, as the Copy-nin, Sharingan-no-Kakashi, his bounty already higher than she remembered when he'd first made jounin, when she was fifteen. 

Her idiot genius teammate, surrounded by so many S-Class shinobi like he was just another name to be ticked off at anyone's convenience. 

She inhaled raggedly, and flipped the page. 

_"I'm sorry I wasn't there for them."_

She thought she'd seen that kumo-nin just half a day away. 

Rin wasn't going to let anyone tick off _her_ teammate. 

She wasn't going to forget, she was Konoha shinobi. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And after this is when i start shamelessly time-skipping. 
> 
> To be fair, this part also sort of stands alone. 
> 
> And also, Suna is permanently traumatised by the crazy cactus punching kunoichi.


	3. Rising with the Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rin accidentally goes to Fire Country and picks up a crow that won't leave her alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some implied cannibalism because Isobu. *buries face in palm* Great, thanks Isobu.

The air didn't change very much, and neither did the vegetation. 

The natural world didn't much care for human boundaries - so she was a full two clicks past the Land of Rivers before she realised she was in Fire Country proper. 

It had been ten years. She'd been avoiding fire Country for ten years and she was in it, for the first time in a decade. 

Wasn't her fault the small bounty station in Rivers was mockingly close to the Fire Country boundaries. 

Ten years as a missing-nin; officially missing, not just on sabbatical. What could she actually be on _sabbatical_ for, she wasn't one of the Sannin who were legends in their own rights, power from themselves and their minds, while she was just an ordinary person who has a god stuck in them for the rest of her natural life. 

Sure, Jiraiya had been sending her the occasional sort of assignment - hints that one or the other shinobi had been spotted around where she was, and it hadn't taken much for her to realise that officially her actions wouldn't have to be acknowledged by Konoha, if anyone ever figured out where she'd been from. 

She was Konoha, but she wasn't. 

She should return to Rivers - maybe wrestle a crocodile like Isobu had suggested a week ago. Try to make crocodile stew from scratch. 

But she was walking forward, anyway, following the delta tributary up and inland. It was Fire Country, but the landscape was still more mangrove than actual forest, it looked nothing like what she grew up in, it might as well be a different country. 

_Look!_

Isobu jerked her attention to a shape in the water, and she turned. 

This close to the marshy part of the Fire Country deltas, most people were either fishermen from tiny settlements nearer the more sturdy ground of the southern peninsula of Fire Country, or from the black coasts of Wind. There would be very few people lurking in the river - 

Which was, she realised, was the actual end of the Naka River. 

_Pull!_

Without even thinking about it, she stretched her hand out and the water swelled, brackish and dark, and the shape shifted like a pile of rags, until the wave spat it out at her feet. 

She nudged her toe into the shape; for a moment she thought she'd just fished a dead body out of the water - "No, Isobu, human doesn't taste good." - but she felt a flicker of chakra. 

Too low to be anything but _dying_ , but shinobi were hardy, they'd probably have to be in there for a lot longer to actually drown. She nudged the body harder till they were curled onto their side and then crouched down to take their pulse at their throat. 

_Taste?_

"Humans don't taste like seal," Rin said out loud, finding the actual pulse. "Don't you remember that time in Ame? You didn't even like it, humans aren't going to change in taste just because." 

_Steam fish taste good. Boiled seal is good._

Rin ignored Isobu's cooking suggestions and put her hand in front of the shinobi's mouth and _tugged_ , yanking a ball of water out from his lungs. 

Who was he, she wondered, studying the ruin of one eye socket, the taste of poison in his blood. The Naka River was running icy this time of the year thanks to mountain melt, so that probably had stopped him from actually dying too, because… 

It was a long way from Konoha. 

He wasn't quite breathing, and his heartbeat was low… 

"Well fucking breathe," she told him, and punched him in the chest. 

*** 

According to the bingo books from Kiri she'd picked up after she'd towed the half drowned shinobi to an inn in Rivers (she was flush from just collecting a bounty, she could afford a room), what she was healing the ribs of was a particularly soggy Uchiha. 

Specifically, Shunshin no Shisui, and Kiri was fucking terrified of him; most of the other bingo books from the other Villages had put his bounty as high, and most had tagged him "Avoid at all costs". Kiri had tagged him twice as much. 

"You don't look particularly terrifying," she told the now breathing Uchiha. 

He looked like he'd spent a lot of time in very cold water, which meant that his eye socket was not in as a terrible mess as first appeared, and she could heal it enough that if she had to, she'd probably be able to implant something in there. 

… 

The thought of a one-eyed Uchiha made her swallow, because the last time she'd touched an Uchiha had been holding Obito's eye in her palm, and Kakashi breathing low and half-terrified and all that blood… 

"You're nothing like Kakashi," she told the Uchiha. He looked like a limp, half-drowned rat, midway between Obito's more stocky frame and Kakashi's lanky limbs, and… 

Stupidly young. He was what, half a decade younger than Kakashi, and already his bounty was about the same as Kakashi's insanely high bounty and Kakashi had been flaunting his fool ass all over the Elemental countries for more than a decade. 

Rin snapped her bingo book shut and stood up. 

She hadn't heard about any fights up in Konoha that would result in one of the most expensive Uchiha to grace the earth to end up face-down down river - which meant this little idiot was probably involved in something secret, and she wasn't going to get involved, no she wasn't. 

Rin was Konoha shinobi, and she wasn't. 

She was going to make crocodile stew while waiting for him to wake up. 

*** 

"I found another two bounties while waiting for you to wake up," a woman said when Shisui roused, blinking blearily at a ceiling. "So I figured, you get to say whether you want a green or blue eye." 

"Wha," Shisui croaked. 

"If you don't pick anything, Uchiha," She said, "I'll pick for you. Hurry up, they're not going to be alive for much longer, and I promise you, transplanting almost-dead tissue's harder than definitely alive." 

There was a meaty thud and a man's pained groan. 

Shisui didn't know what on earth she was talking about, but he liked blue. "Blue?" 

"Alright." 

Then everything got dark and cold for a while. 

*** 

Hooking up the optic nerves and the blood vessels were a little tricky - but less so than she remembered doing with Kakashi. There was no real chakra-hook up in this case, and there wasn't complete trauma and damage to it - perhaps Shisui had been sedated when the eye was taken. 

Other than the slight swelling, she supposed that the Uchiha was almost pretty. The mismatched eyes would be very striking, but striking in a very civilian way, and definitely not anything like a typical Uchiha anymore. 

She sat and ate her crocodile stew, propping her feet up on the table, sack of coins by her ankles as she considered what to do with him. 

_Eat!_

"Like I said, humans don't taste like seal," she said. "Or crocodile, or dolphin. Humans are exceedingly boring to eat." 

Isobu subsided a little, muttering sullenly. Rin supposed that it was regretting bringing Shisui to her attention now that she was not letting it take a good ol' test chomp out of his backside. 

"Why are you trying to eat me?" The Uchiha sounded horrified, but also like he couldn't do much more than open his eyes and flop like a fish, so it wasn't like he was about to try to set her on fire. 

"I am _not_ trying to eat you," Rin said. "Human doesn't taste good, _and_ I put in the effort into keeping you alive and fixing your face, it'd be a waste if I ate you." 

"Is that a euphemism?" Shisui said after a moment. 

Rin scrunched her face. "Teenagers. Shut up and go back to sleep. Talk about your dick when you can sit up and do something about it." 

"It _was_ a euphemism," Shisui concluded, and he sounded a magnitude less horrified, which Rin supposed was an improvement. 

"And you're a drowned rat," Rin retorted. "So shut up and sleep. Or I can make you." 

Shisui actually opened his eyes - if with a little difficulty - and smiled angelically at her. "Are you gonna?" 

She snorted, leaned over and shoved her hand against his forehead with a sharp spurt of chakra. 

His eyes, newly implanted and old, rolled up into the back of his head and he flopped back down. 

Brain damaged, she thought, brain damaged and a teenager. Lovely. 

***

When the Uchiha was awake enough longer than the time needed to make a sex joke, she had been just coming back from the nearby market with mackerel, and heard him scream from the room. 

"What happened now?" she said. 

There was nothing here that could even _think_ of threatening her, and if he managed to kill himself by leaping out a window or flinging himself down the stairs, she would probably be very cross. 

"I have," he said, eyes wide and wild, gesturing at the bathroom mirror, "a _foreign eye_ in my _head!_ " 

"Yes," Rin said, putting the giant pile of fish and rice on the table. Isobu still didn't think much of rice, but she was human and needed carbohydrates. A protein-only diet would have her already insane metabolism just ramp up. 

"You put a _foreign eyeball_ in my head?!" 

"Yes," Rin said. "You chose the blue one." 

She looked at him, and then caught his chin so he'd stop flailing around and falling over the sink. "The swelling's gone down," she decided, tipping his head up and side to side. "And the pupil is responding just the same as the other. It's fine. I guess you count as almost pretty now." 

"Where the hell did you get a blue eyeball?" Up close, she could see the Uchiha's pupils expand in horror as he thought about it. "You put a _dead man's eye_ in my head?!" 

"Yeah," Rin said, thinking about the knife she'd stabbed into his empty eye-socket and into his brain, killing him quick and painlessly and giving her a perfect excuse as to why the bounty was missing an eye. "He's definitely dead." 

"I have a dead eye in my _head_!" 

"It wasn't dead when I put it in," Rin said, annoyed, letting go of his face. "Stop throwing hysterics, if you wanted the green one you should have said." 

"There were _two?!_ " Shisui said, gaping at her. "What on earth are you?" 

"The person who gave you binocular vision and bought you lunch," she said. "Wash your hands and then come and eat, or else I'll eat it all and you'll have to fend for yourself." 

Shisui followed her out, staring at the giant pile of food on the table. "You can't possibly eat all that," he said. 

"Watch me," Rin said. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TEST BITE CANNIBALISM 
> 
> ISOBU SPAT BUT DIDN'T SWALLOW
> 
> Alternative title: The Soggy Uchiha.


	4. There's someone, somewhere watching me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Uchiha's healed and all. 
> 
> Oddly enough, he's not leaving her alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy genderqueer!Shisui! :D They just are. Because why not. Every version of Shisui is going to be different apparently.

"Nope," Shisui said after Rin attempted to climb out the window a week later to find that he was following behind her. 

She hadn't been trying very hard, definitely, but he had appeared to be _asleep_. 

Shinobi reflexes, she thought wryly, or else he was really good at faking it. Isobu wasn't great at telling it apart either, sleep or not had never made a real difference to it. And she had been away from people - more or less, bounty-kills didn't count - long enough that she'd forgotten that shinobi could fake it. 

"Nope what," she said. 

The strange poison - insectoid, Isobu decided, yuck - had already been discharged, and his eye was healed. The trauma of the healing and possibly Isobu's chakra meant that in the moonlight, such as now, Shisui's blue eye gave the impression of a glow, and in the day time his heterochromia was going to grab the attention and _hold_ , which was great for him, good job, he could go back to being a ninja and no one would even recognise him. 

"You saved my life," he said. "I'm not going to let you leave me behind, I _owe_ you." 

"Save me from men's idiotic honour," Rin muttered. 

"I'm not, exactly, one," Shisui said. 

She blinked, paused, turned around. "You're not what, honourable?" 

"Still shinobi," Shisui said, indicating his forehead where his hitai-ate ought to be. "I don't have honour, and I'm not… male. Ish." 

She waited. 

Shisui rocked on his heels for a moment. "I don't feel entirely male or female sometimes?" He said like he wasn't quite sure of the words, and Rin wondered why Shisui was telling her this, right now, right here.

Shisui shrugged. "Never bothered correcting anyone while I was shinobi," he said, "But since I'm going to follow you-" 

"I never said you could follow me." 

"- I figure it should only be right that you know," Shisui said, and smiled brightly at her when she just stared at him. 

"I don't need to know because you're not coming with me." 

"I'll just follow you," Shisui said, "I'm not as good a tracker as Hatake, but I can track pretty good." 

Her jaw twitched. Kakashi and his ninken and his ridiculous sense of smell. She shouldn't be here; it was still Fire Country, he could pick up her scent any time. 

There wasn't any particular need to avoid Kakashi - she'd picked off people who might even consider trying to hunt him down for his bounty, though Kakashi just kept pissing off more people all over the world, so it wasn't like it was a job that was going to end. 

"What's the real reason you want to follow me," she said flatly. 

Shisui hesitated, and then stuck his hands into his pockets. "I have to lay low," he said, quietly. "There's - someone I have to avoid." 

And, Rin could understand the fact that he would want to get out of the country ASAP. He was distinctive in a completely different way now, but the itch of eyes and spies on him must probably gnaw at his mind. 

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, I can take you as far as -" Konoha's historical enemies were Kiri and Suna, but Suna was in some sort of truce with Konoha now, and Rin didn't go to Water if she could avoid it. 

(Isobu liked it there, but Isobu would probably just trash Kirigakure if her control slipped even _just_ a little, and she wouldn't feel at all sorry, but then it'd be pretty damn obvious what she was, from then on. She didn't need all that attention.) 

"Grass," she decided. Via Rains, she decided, they could have the steamed glass-carp again, with the deep-fried fish skin and plum dipping sauce. 

_Steam fish!_

"Yeah, steamed fish," She said. 

"What?" 

"Just grab your shit and let's go," Rin said. 

"I don't, exactly, have anything," Shisui pointed out. 

"You're not even going to go get the money on the table?" 

"Isn't that yours?" Shisui asked, wide-eyed and innocent and Rin knew the little shit already had it hidden somewhere on his person. 

She snorted. "Fine, then let's go." 

*** 

Shisui tensed up when they passed within a day of Amegakure, but she ignored it, heading instead to a tiny village off the main road and following a dirt path that was usually mud half the year. 

"Why can't we go via the trees?" Shisui exclaimed, pouting. 

"If we don't arrive half covered in mud," Rin said, ignoring Shisui's little squeak as they probably fell through another apparently invisible dip in the clay path. "We'd be obviously shinobi." 

"But we're shinobiiiii," Shisui whined. 

"You're the one who wanted to hide," Rin said heartlessly. "And you're the one who's following me." 

"Why are we going to a tiny little …" Shisui squinted through the drizzle. Thick broad leaves dumped a bucket load of water on their head. They sputtered like a soggy rat. "... village?" 

"They have the best grilled spiced-fish paste," Rin said. 

"A what what," Shisui said.

*** 

Shisui had turned a gratifyingly blotchy red when Rin had given them their first taste of spicy fish paste. Isobu still disliked chilli and spicy foods, but at least it would tolerate it enough because Rin always got something steamed or watery afterwards. Like chilled coconut water. 

Rin briefly considered attempting to leave Shisui in the Land of Rains. Most Konoha nin avoided the country if they could help it, and while Ame-nin weren't as vicious as Kiri-nin, they and their countrymen were paranoid as fuck. You had to be completely impervious to stares or know how to blend in to avoid it, and Rain paranoia would serve as a decent warning system for foreign spies. 

But the kid looked so _miserable_ about the rains, and actually managed to get a blister on both heels, and if she left them here, Shisui'd probably encounter foot rot fungus and lose all their toes and then Rin would have to go find someone to be a somewhat unwilling donor. 

Well fine, maybe they would like Grass better after all. 

***

The first big town they stopped at in Grass was a somewhat permanent settlement a couple dozen klicks away from Grass' capital. It wasn't as populated as any similarly important city or towns in Fire, but then, Grass' population tended towards nomadic, with their somewhat nutrient poor soils and thus they imported most crops and subsisted on huge herds of sheep and goats and the occasional horse. 

Kusagakure brought in a lot of their economy, and generally didn't actually like fighting on home-ground, since they mostly sold their services in other countries. 

With all those imported goods, things were quite a bit more expensive than in say, any of the Five Great Countries, but Shisui's eyes lit up when they saw a bright electric blue skirt for sale. 

It wasn't typical shinobi wear, Rin knew, watching Shisui brush their knuckles against the smooth silk, their fingers leaving a shimmer of ripples like water. 

_Water. Ocean._

"You're in disguise," Rin told Shisui when she bought the skirt and dumped it in their arms. "Go get something to go with this so you won't look like half-drowned vagabond." 

"I _am_ a half-drowned vagabond," Shisui said. 

"You don't have to look like one," Rin retorted. 

"And I don't have any money!" 

"You have that purse I left on the table how many days ago? Unless you ate it, you have enough to go make yourself look decent." 

Shisui still looked a little shocked at the silk in their arms, and Rin had to shove them in the general direction of something that looked like a headache made real and printed on fabric. 

If nothing else, no one would believe anyone wearing _this_ was a shinobi. 

Shisui caught up with her half an hour later and somehow they'd managed to find kohl as well, and despite their now somewhat shaggy hair, and no other real makeup, they didn't look at all the same. 

Electric blue skirt, something white with fringe and dark kohl around their eyes. The skirt was almost the same shade as their blue eye and even the waiter bringing Rin her fourth bowl of mutton soup was staring. 

"Like it?" Shisui said, grinning at her. 

"Yes, very good, did you get the change back?" she snagged her bowl before the waiter dropped it. 

"Of course I did, it's my change," Shisui said, preening. 

"Magpie," Rin said.

"I'm not, this is camouflage," Shisui protested and sprawled on the bench opposite her and fluttered their eyelashes at him. 

"Right, and the jewellery is part of your cover." 

"These?" Shisui flicked the polished brass rings glinting from the headband they'd acquired as well. "They're just shiny. Am I pretty enough for you now, mistress?" 

She didn't spit out the soup. Shisui was such a little _shit_. 

*** 

"I'm not going to _buy_ you a house," Rin said while Shisui pouted. 

Somehow, instead of staying in Grass, Shisui had decided to follow her all along the border of Lightning country to Rock, and insisted on staying there right at the three-way border of Lightning, Rock and Rains, which was such an appalling lack of taste Rin thought that was his brain damage manifesting. 

"Buying's cheaper than rent," Shisui pointed out, so reasonably. 

"I could sell you for your bounty," Rin said, "That's so much cheaper, it comes out to _profit_." 

Shisui pouted at her. Somehow, they had acquired lipstick too. It wasn't garish, but again, striking. 

There had also been a string of civilians all along Lightning country border who quite agreed with Shisui's fashion taste. 

People were indecipherable. 

"I could find you people to get bounties for, keeping me in the style I'm used to is _more_ profitable!" 

Rin didn't point out that the style Shisui was used to was whatever the Uchiha Clan liked, such as austerity, black and navy clothes and the uchiwa fan everywhere. 

They almost definitely didn't approve of _glitter_ and feather earrings. 

She just thumped a heavy wallet on the table. "Just take it and go." 

Maybe this meant she could leave him behind now that he was settled. 

*** 

She was very far north inland of Earth Country when the first crow found her. 

"So there was this very _handsome_ Kiri-nin who dropped by," the crow croaked at her, "He was hunting bounties too, and he said he was going to head up into Earth Country, and he looks _just_ your type!" 

"Why," Rin said, "are you telling me this?" 

The crow cocked its head at her, then tipped it the other way. 

"Caw," it said. 

"That little shit," Rin said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just going to be incredibly dork. Amegakure is just gonna be Singapore, with the rest of Land of Rains (because Unnamed country) is going to be South-East Asian inspired. Hence, Otak-otak that spicy grilled fish-paste.
> 
> So in case anyone wanted to know: 
> 
> Rikacain and I worked out that the general cuisines of each country were 
> 
> Fire Country, Hokage, Konohagakure: Mainly Japanese cuisine, but with lots of other spices food, and a lot of immigrant adaptation foods. Uses a lot of herbs and stuff, meats mostly chicken & pork, a lot of green vegetables. Many spices are actually native here. (Thus the prevalence of ramen, which is actually considered a Chinese food in Japan) 
> 
> Wind country, Kazekage, Sunagakure: Spicy-hot bbq type food, with meat of choice goat/mutton, occasionally camel. Middle-east inspired type foods. 
> 
> Lightning country, Raikage, Kumogakure/cloud : with the fertile valleys around, food and veg is swiss-like, pork/meats sausages, with pickled vegetables and various hashes and imported herbs. Kumogakure tho, literally also has a lot more flying birds like geese and duck in the cuisine, so like smoked duck ramen.
> 
> Water Country, Mizukage, Kirigakure: Russian/Norwegian type food, though heavy on the seafood stews, so a lot of fermented fish/meats, pickled vegetables. Very little greens. Water Country also has a basically protected method of preserving high value fish such as cod, such that they make boat loads of money exporting fresh fish all over, while other countries like Fire Country and Lightning, even if they have coast lines aren't very good at sending fresh fish inland - so every other country capitals/inland cities, fresh fish are most likely from Water Country rather than from their own local coasts.
> 
> Cod: a delicacy to many landlocked regions without direct access to coast. Thanks to classified preservation and drying techniques, Water dominates trade of highly sought after deep-sea fish. 
> 
> Earth Country, Tsuchikage, Iwagakure: Iwa mochi (crispy rice cake lol) . Mostly fertile lands, able to grow rice and other grains for export, so rice & noodles & wheat products, and own native herbs and spices that are traded seasonally. Main cuisine are curries & Stews, which are eaten with various kinds of rices, and bread wheat products like naan and pratas. They have loads of sweets too sweets too. They might also be growing sugar cane or beets somewhere.
> 
> Amegakure, often wartorn, sandwiched between Earth Wind and fire | | | | - food is mostly freshwater mussels and fish from cultivated lakes such as freshwater carp. Their main export is koi - but these koi got very pretty patterns, some almost seal-like. I'm sure that someone once yeeted a seal-koi at Rin, and was very Surprised when Rin just ate it, seal and all. #thanksIsobu
> 
> Kusagakure: land of grass: food is mainly Mongolian style, fermented dairy products, meat etc.
> 
> Otogakure, Land of Sound, originally land of rice fields: food be catfish and rice and coconut. Somewhat more Thai-ish. 
> 
> Yugakure, land of hot water (hot water village), / / / Hidan was from there. Spa i guess. Maybe a lot of oden, fuck if I know anymore. 
> 
> Tanigakure, Land of Rivers 川(Village hidden in Valleys), 谷 : Chinese foods! Cantonese stuff, like steamed fish and dimsum, also crocodile, because native crocs in them rivers and deltas. Possibly crabs too. 
> 
> Cuisine unknown: 
> 
> Takigakure: land of waterfall (down arrow point) 
> 
> Ishigakure: the land of rock 石 
> 
> Shimogakure (land of frost, Frost village)


	5. Holding out for a hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You'd think the little idiot Uchiha would just go away after Rin gave him an eye and a house.
> 
> Hmm.
> 
> Maybe she's miscalculated somewhere.

Shisui stayed right where Rin'd left him, and invested her earnings for her from there. 

It was a little strange - that there were now two fixed points in her mental landscape, a straight line between Shisui's house and Konoha and it didn't matter where she went - it was like being triangulated, pinned down sturdy and real, anchored in the world. 

Three hundred klicks north-west of Konoha, one and a half hundred klicks south-east of Shisui. 

She'd thought that once she left Shisui, they would just hunker down and blend into the landscape, disappear into the earth like so many other people had. 

Instead the little shit sent incessant crows. 

"Three shinobi heading your way," said one, "the blond's supposed to have a bounty of five-hundred thousand ryou. The other two are a bit cheap, but I guess together they'd pay my utilities." 

"Why the hell am I still paying your utilities," Rin told the crow and flicked it through the sky. 

She kept sending them back - one time even managing to punch one by accident - and there were always more. It was like having Shisui there in person, just with multiple croaky voices and irritating hoppy black bodies. 

They were so many, it wasn't like she could tell the difference between them - every time she sent one back to Shisui telling them exactly what she thought of his messages, another would hop up to her. 

"Because I have to live, and it's so much _work_ making your money grow, Rin-sama~" Crows sing-songing at her was always a little creepy, and Rin wondered what would happen if she ate one. 

"No wonder all your bounties were 'avoid at all cost'," she said, "you're _incredibly_ annoying." 

"You read my bounties? Did I look pretty in the photos?" 

"You looked like an idiot," Rin said. Yes, she could feel the chakra traces of the three shinobi that Shisui had pointed out. 

Ah well, she wanted to try some oily spicy hot pot, and her purse was running thin. 

*** 

"The Kiri-nin really liked you," a crow croaked at her from a low shrub. 

"She almost took my head off," Rin pointed out. 

"Your head is still there. See?" 

Rin counted to ten. The crow hopped forward. "How is that meant to mean anything?" 

"You're still alive! She likes yoooou," the crow said, and fluttered out of her reach before she could punch it. 

"I'm going to cut your summoner's allowance, see if I don't." 

*** 

It wasn't the first time she was curious about sex, but it was the first time she'd felt curious about it after Isobu, and curious enough to do something about it. 

She blamed Shisui and his incessant crows. 

For once, there weren't an entire flock hopping around after her like some particularly noisy shadows, so she could venture into a bar. 

She liked civilian bars generally; they were noisy things, and everyone telegraphed their intents like giant flags. Watching bar fights here was like watching tv drama but in three-dimensional, surround sound and scent, and sometimes if she wanted to, she could participate. 

Bar food was generally pretty good, if a tad expensive, and Isobu always made hilarious noises when she ordered beer. 

She got a beer this time, no food, because she was interested in something _other_ than food; it was going to be easy enough right? 

The picking up of someone was easy enough; despite her complete disinterest in makeup and pretty clothes (she left that to Shisui - their spending in that department boggled the mind, she hadn't known that there was enough to spend on on a Monthly Basis), an intent look and shinobi physique was enough to entice a partner who was willing. 

He was even willing to take her to a hotel room, which Rin approved of, a suitable caution. 

Isobu made little interested noises when they got to the kissing, then the touching under the clothes, which was physically pleasurable, and Rin definitely enjoyed enough to focus on the man. 

Pretty enough eyes, clever enough fingers and tongue, pleasant to touch and listen to - 

When he got down between her legs though, Isobu _bellowed_. 

It was a huge, deep sound that wasn't so much _sound_ as … _feeling_ , that roughly translated to: 

_WHOO HOOOOOOOOO_

"Oh my _god_ ," Rin exclaimed - hips jerking in startlement. 

_GETTING SOME_

"Fucking _hell_!" She almost ripped the sheets in her surprise. 

"Are you okay?" the man said, looking up at her - 

"I'm. fine," Rin grit out, nudging him. "It's fine - continue - " 

_BOW CHICKABOW-WOW_

"For fuck's sake, SHUT UP," she yelled, gripping the bed frame. 

The man jerked back hard and Rin nearly punched something - the bed frame cracked. "Wha-" 

"God, SHUT up, shut up, no it's not you, sorry," Rin yanked back away from him and he was definitely looking wide-eyed, startled and wilting and she… she'd be sorry but Isobu was still bellowing in her head and - "It's not you, it's me, sorry," she said and vaulted out the window. 

*** 

Unlike Rin's first and only foray into sex, over the years that Rin knew him, Shisui was having the time of their life in the civilian, shinobi and bounty-hunter population. 

Rin knew this because Shisui sent her reports. 

"Did you know the Kiri Swordsmen are _excellent_ with swords?" asked a crow. 

"I didn't need to know that," Rin said. 

"I couldn't even put my hands around the hilt!" 

"I'm going to burn all your makeup the next time I'm around." 

Or: 

"Can you bring some of that rose-scented oils from Wind when you come round? I've run out." 

"How can you run out of it I just got you a huge pot last month," Rin said, pausing to check the pockets of her latest bounty. 

"Well a whole squad of Suna-nin passed through on the way back from a long mission, and they missed home a LOT," Shisui's crow said and Rin wondered whether she could stuff the damn thing into the corpse's face just to get it to shut up. 

Shisui was having a grand time, in other words. 

These days when she passed through the town they stayed in, to drop off a bounty and check on her current earnings, she always dropped by their house. 

It was always changing, tiny additions here and there, new window screens, a potted plant out back, painted fence. 

And almost always someone else with there. 

She knew Shisui was shinobi enough to also be gathering information, but since that didn't actually take up all the hours in their day, she also dumped her writing on them. 

Ah yes writing. 

It was Shisui's fault anyway. They'd noted Jiraiya's Icha-Icha series, and that they were literally everywhere. 

"Earning a stupid amount in commission, Rin-sama!" they'd said, earnestly. "Think about it, a stable if modest income on monthly commissions from book sales, no wonder he'd gotten to run around everywhere without taking actual missions!" 

Yeah Shisui was definitely not missing the mission-structure of the Village. 

And they'd pestered her to do some writing to be sold. 

"I'm not writing porn," She said drily. 

"You could though, you meet so many people," Shisui said brightly. 

"I _kill_ many people and scare them off," Rin said. 

"Semantics," Shisui said, "You just gotta meet the right people and bang 'em -" 

Which was when Rin took their face in her hands and told him to look into her mind. 

And shoved Isobu's enthusiastic participation in sex into his brain. 

She didn't feel a little bit sorry at the way they fell over after that. 

"Youre - you're the sanbi jinchuuriki?!" 

Right, she hadn't told them that, had she? 

"His name's Isobu," She told him helpfully while Shisui flailed. 

Sadly it only worked to keep them from suggesting other shinobi for her to bang for two weeks. 

Shisui was a little irrepressible shithead. 

A month after _that_ little revelation was when they suggested that Rin write a food travelogue. 

"You never send me anything cool to eat," Shisui said aggrieved when she came back to look at her money balance. "It's always fish jerky." 

"Isobu likes fish." 

"But the crows say you eat all sorts of interesting things!" 

"You could just go yourself." 

"I have to keep house for you," Shisui said like a martyr. 

"And your half a million lovers," Rin said drily, watching a scarred woman lean in to kiss Shisui's temple and pick up her Kumo-hitai-ate and leave through the nearest window. 

"That too," Shisui said and brushed their hair back primly. "I need the utilities." 

"Because you've been spending everything on glitter," Rin said, eying the shimmery curtains. 

Shisui beamed at her. 

*** 

So Rin wrote something on the food she ate - she went everywhere in every country short of the hidden villages. She didn't exactly want to screw them up, and anyway their food wasn't the best part of their countries anyway. 

Shisui got a publisher and spent their spare time between having orgies, collating intel on her next bounties, investing her money and harassing her with his crows editing her writing. 

It was, surprisingly, a decent seller. 

Who'd have thought. 

***

There was someone in Shisui's house again; every time she came by there was almost always some different assortment of people, a different arrangement from a pick-and-choose buffet of people. 

She'd long since given up on understanding Shisui - she liked food, they liked people. 

None of them tried to attack her or Shisui, so she considered it good enough. 

(They was never going back to Konoha, she knew; they'd taken too much to the glittery side of life, and after the giant mess that had resulted in all of the Uchiha being gone, she wasn't surprised Shisui had made it a permanent life out here. Apparently they liked leeching off her earnings too much.) 

So she just let herself in, not bothering to call Shisui. The last time she'd tried to alert them and their partner(s) out of consideration, Shisui had tried to hook her up with Dodai, a kumo nin who was missing one eye and a terrible looking hat. 

See, Shisui had absolutely no taste.

So it was just better to sneak in and dump the latest manuscripts on their desk. 

She had not expected to walk into Hatake fucking Kakashi just coming out of Shisui's office. 

"Rin?" he said

"Shit," she said. 

"Oh hey," Shisui said, slinking out half dressed and half glowing and glittery. "The next manuscript?" 

"You never said you and - Kakashi-! Shisui!" 

"Shisui?!" Kakashi said, jerking to turn to look at Shisui. 

"Yup? Oh. I didn't introduce myself last night did I? Sorry," Shisui said, patting Kakashi's cheek and taking the manuscript from Rin. 

Kakashi was still wearing his mask, otherwise his jaw would have dropped. 

Rin felt weirdly rooted to the spot. 

_Bite?_ Isobu thought Kakashi was too skinny to eat though. _Not Seal. Crunchy?_

"No," Rin said. 

"No - what?" Kakashi said, attention jerking back to her. His eye was dark and wide. 

"No, I was telling Isobu not to bite you, you're not the right sort of crunchy." 

His visible eye widened, maybe got a bit wild around the edge. But, she noticed, he was looking her in the eye. 

In the twelve years she was gone, the idiot had gotten tall. His hair had gotten stupider too, and now faintly glittery, thanks to Shisui. 

"Isobu?" 

She narrowed her eyes. 

"Oh. Right." he said, and then looked her up and down and. "You're missing-nin," he said. 

"And so is Shisui." 

"No, I'm _dead_ ," Shisui caroled out from the other room. 

"Your ass still has a bounty I can claim," Rin yelled back. "I'm cutting your allowance for this, how come you didn't warn me?" 

"Allowance?" Kakashi said, a little faintly. 

"Kakashi-senpai," Shisui said, appearing out of the room like they'd just used a burst of glittery shunshin and they was draping against Kakashi's back, arms around his waist. 

It was testament to Shisui's ability to bang people senseless, because Kakashi didn't automatically stab Shisui in the side. 

"Rin-sama is so _mean_! Would you do that to your own _lover_ , Rin-sama?" 

Shisui was standing on tiptoes so they could prop their chin on Kakashi's shoulder. 

Shisui was a ridiculous person. 

Kakashi was going very statue-like. 

"I should sell you," Rin said grimly. "Get off him, Shisui." 

"We got off last night," Shisui said grinning. "Multiple times." 

"Uchiha Shisui," Kakashi said. "Didn't Uchiha Itachi kill you?" 

Shisui scrunched their face up a little. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. And I'm going to have tea." 

Kakashi just _looked_ at Rin. 

She shoved her hands into her pockets. "We should go to the kitchen. At least I think Shisui hadn't fucked anyone on those chairs." 

*** 

"You're missing-nin," Kakashi said, when Rin took a mug from Shisui's cupboards and poured hot tea into it and shoved it in Kakashi's general direction. 

"Missing-nin, bounty hunter, and feral medic," Shisui said, as they boiled more hot water. 

"Why'd you leave?" Kakashi said and he looked tense, like he was going to - snap. Break something. 

He might try to hurt her, she supposed, but he wasn't going to succeed. 

She wasn't afraid of him, and neither was Isobu. 

There were so many ways that she could break him from here, if she wanted. Starting with that stupid fluffy mess of hair. 

"Isobu was angry, and would have killed Naruto," She said simply. "I couldn't let Kushina-sensei's son die." She swallowed down the old hurt. It had been years since she'd said Kushina's name or her son's name, but it was. 

Not so sharp anymore. A distant ache rather than a sharp lancing stab. 

"Oh," Kakashi said. "Why didn't you -" Come back. Write to me. Talk to me. So many questions she could just about see. 

"I found out some _idiot_ ," She said, reaching into her pouch and pulling out a slightly grotty bingo book from Kiri, "had a huge ass bounty for 4 million ryou." she flipped it open and showed Kakashi his own stupid photo. "What were you thinking, flaunting your ass around the place with no back up?" 

He was blinking at the book. Or winking. Wasn't easy to tell, but it was far more likely blinking. She could _see_ him processing, rapid-fire, making deductions. She just had to wait. 

That part hadn't changed - he'd always been lightning quick, faster than her and Obito. When she had been younger, when they had been teammates, his speed had made her feel stupid and frustrated. 

Now, twelve years later, she was closer to thirty than twenty, and she was okay with that, not having to explain anything anymore. 

"Huh, is that why you always picked other countries' bingo books?" Shisui said. "That's sweet." 

"Shut up Shisui," Rin said. 

"You're not even in the Konoha bingo book," Kakashi said quietly, taking her book and touching the known associates under his own name. 

Her name wasn't there. 

"They don't know I exist, anymore," Rin said, shrugging. "How is Naruto?" 

Kakashi froze. 

Rin's eyes narrowed. 

"Huh," Shisui said, "I'm out of milk, I'm going -" 

"Sit down Shisui," Rin said dangerously. "Kakashi?" 

*** 

"That is the worst _bullshit_ I've ever _heard_ ," Rin yelled. The counter was creaking a little from the hole she'd punched into it. 

"The Hokage- " 

"The Hokage is a pile of rotting barnacle whale diarrhea!" she continued yelling. "Naruto is Kushina-sensei's son! You are going back there and taking care of him! Or else I'm going to be introducing you to every fucking cactus in Wind Country! Face first!" 

Kakashi blinked at her, a little hunched. "Why cactus?" 

"Oh, oh, oh I know this one! Here let me find the report - Here - ah - by Baki of Suna, _"A sighting of the crazy cactus-punching kunoichi on the north-west quadrant. Discard all water-bottles and give a 1 klick berth."_ " Shisui said, having dug up an old dusty looking scroll. 

"Cactus-punching kunoichi," Kakashi said. 

".... How old is that report?" Rin asked, anger momentarily derailed. 

"Eleven years old," Shisui said. "Isn't it amazing? I love Suna records archives - they keep fifty years worth of records. It's like, amazingly well kept and organized. A bit sandy, but sand is not the enemy of paper the way water is." 

"The question is,' Kakashi said after a moment, "How do you know about their records?" 

"I snuck in," Shisui said simply. "A year ago. So many useful personnel records on potential bounties for Rin-sama to hunt down, and they label everything so _well_ , there's an entire section called 'Cactus-puncher'." 

Rin exhaled. "Shisui, shut up. Kakashi, you're going to go back to Konoha and _take care of Naruto._ Understand?" 

Kakashi eyed the other holes in the kitchen. "Understood, Rin-sama." 

She smiled. "Good. Now-" She found a pair of scissors in the somewhat ruined drawer. "Bring that stupid mess of hair here. "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It never got into the fic but there's a further headcanon that Rin generally is not only not afraid of most people, but also she doesn't generally kill people unless bounties. 
> 
> The last time several shinobi DID attack her, though, was several years ago. 
> 
> She did send them back in more or less the same number of pieces she'd found them in; they even had the statistically average number of appendages and one right and one left hand each even.   
> Even if they might not have started out as THEIR original hands… well. 
> 
> It was only a day later after she sent them back that she found a finger in the battlefield. 
> 
> Rin: Oops. 
> 
> Holding out for a hero: Oh wait it's me. I'm the hero.


	6. Epilogue: Where have all the good men gone

"We should have known," Kotetsu said, as the dust settled. "Those goddamn suna nin were so jumpy, we should have known they were planning some shit. 

Izumo nodded, dropping his head between his knees. 

***

"Fuck," Baki said, twitching violently when he caught the edge of water chakra. His whole team tensed with him, watching his hands - and he almost had the _abort, detour_ signals right _there_... 

And it turned out that it was a kid. Just a kid. 

"This is fucking Fire Country," someone muttered behind Baki. "how come there's so many water affinity brats around?" 

Baki wholeheartedly agreed. Every brush of water chakra made him remember cactus-juice _snakes_ , and it had been a very exciting and painful year or so until that crazy kunoichi disappeared from the face of the earth. 

God he couldn't wait for the invasion to start - it wasn't _right_ to have this much water affinity chakra assholes in _Fire Country_.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the good men have run away to bang Shisui, apparently.
> 
> :D
> 
> And thus comes to the end of Skinsplitter Nohara Rin, feral medic, food connoisseur, bounty-hunter, and jinchuuriki.
> 
> She's my sweet baby, and I loved writing her so, so much. This backstory doesn't change much of the actual canon, and it still plays out more or less the same in-Village, but outside it?
> 
> Rin's grown up, she's learned to give no fucks at all. Shisui being there has helped her learn to reconnect to being human again, and in the future, she'd probably just punch-solve so many problems.
> 
> And eat all the fish. 
> 
> this sort of is the backstory/story for Rin that i can use for all future fics that require a feral-medic; keep an eye out for her!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, R&R and whatnot. :D :D :D

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Sheer Ecstasy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22486897) by [CreativeSweets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreativeSweets/pseuds/CreativeSweets)




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